


Alone

by DawningStar



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-02
Updated: 2007-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 13:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawningStar/pseuds/DawningStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aboard the Chinese freighter, Colby knows no one is coming. Spoilers for Janus List, Trust Metric, and One Hour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one: drifting

Aboard the Chinese freighter, drugged and too well aware that Death waits patiently for him in a small vial while the stream of questions pulls at him, Colby Granger dreams of rescue.

_It's Don who bursts into the cabin first, bellowing "FBI! Drop your weapons!" and within seconds everyone is in standard-issue handcuffs. They handcuff Colby, too, before they take him out of the chair. He's the focus of their angry eyes, not Carter, not the spy. Even Megan looks like she'd kind of like to shoot him. He's betrayed them, betrayed their trust, and it doesn't much matter that he was under orders. They won't forgive him. _

_David says it, says "You were never one of us, Granger, and you never will be." _

_He's okay with that, though, because he deserves it, and they came for him anyway, and he's not alone after all-- _

Colby blinks. Hallucinations, he remembers, not real. Of course not. He knows it won't happen.

Even with the drug burning in his blood, filling his mind with smoke, he can't shake the sharp awareness of how utterly alone he is. Might be his team would believe him, in the end--'his team,' the FBI team he'd grown to love being a part of, the team that felt like family, the team he's betrayed. Might be, even though Kirkland is dead, his only backup, his only proof.

But he'd done too well at escaping, they don't know where he is, and even if they did they would never catch up. He is alone with the drugs, alone with Carter, alone with his interrogator, alone with himself. He isn't sure which of the four is worse company.

When his mind drifts, though, he dreams of rescue.

_It's Don who bursts into the cabin first, bellowing "FBI! Drop your weapons!" but the Chinese were waiting for them, and there are no accusatory looks in his direction because all is gunfire and blood, and his team will look at nothing ever again--_

Colby blinks. It's not real. He's alone, which means, at least, that his team is safe. He'd almost forgotten to be grateful for that.

"Do they know my name?" his interrogator demands again.

Kirkland is standing just behind the tray of drugs, and he's smiling. Sympathy, encouragement. The agent knows perfectly well how Colby feels. Kirkland died without giving anything away--well, anything but his cell phone, which means Colby is dead, but he can't blame him for that, really. "Just wait," Kirkland tells him. Blood trickles out of his mouth as he talks, which is sort of distracting. "It won't be much longer." He looks at the last vial on the tray.

He doesn't think he could answer the questions now even if he'd wanted to. He is lost inside himself, but the questions stir no memory of their answers. Had he ever known the answers?

Does it matter?

_A cabinet swings silently open behind the Chinese agent, and it's David, rolling out with his gun raised. He fires at the guards, at Carter, and they all go down before they notice the intruder. The man who's so fond of drugs goes down by his own needle, unwilling to face capture, which is fine by Colby. He's staring incredulously at David, who raises his eyebrows and answers the silent question, "Charlie, of course. How else?" _

_Of course--there's Charlie now, writing equations all over the wall in black marker. _

Colby gasps, and blinks, and he can still see Charlie and his numbers--

"It's not real," Charlie assures him, with an absent glance over his shoulder as the marker squeaks. Smells like a permanent marker, a new one.

Carter's Chinese contact is saying something, which Colby doesn't pay much attention to. Behind the man, Kirkland shakes his head. "No one's coming to help you this time, Granger," he says wearily, and wipes the blood from his mouth. "Just me. I'm sorry I got you into this. But it won't be much longer."

Looking as defensive as though someone's just challenged his math, Charlie turns from the wall, pointing his marker at Kirkland as though it's some sort of weapon. "_You_ can't help him. But Colby called me." The mathematician turns a worried look at Colby. "You know I can get you help," he adds. "Just hold on."

He called Charlie, and so, even though he knows it won't happen, he dreams of rescue.

_They leave him alone for a minute, because what can he do, drugged and tied to a chair? Before the echo of the door fades, there's Megan, slipping in from the shadows who-knows-how, and she smiles at him, the smile she gives a friend, the one he doesn't deserve. "Charlie figured everything out," she tells him, "I'll have you out of here in a few minutes, Colby," and her hands on the restraints hurt, but that's okay, because it's worth it to be free--_

Colby gasps, and it was his torturer tightening the restraints, but he can still see Megan's smile lingering.

Across the room, Charlie's still scratching away at his equations or formulas or whatever, and it's a good thing he's a hallucination because Colby doesn't think Dwayne's boss would like having his ship all marked up like that. "It's not real," Charlie admits, as Megan lifts her hands helplessly and fades away, "but it will be. Hold on, Colby."

Kirkland just coughs up more blood and looks at Colby, a world-weary, pitying look. He doesn't have to repeat himself. Colby already knows no one is coming.

He's known that before, though.

_On the train, tension humming through him like the rhythm of the tracks, he knows how completely alone he is. The kidnapper spotted his backup one by one, cut off his communication, and he knows none of his team followed him onto the train; no one knows where he's going except the person who's probably going to kill him. _

_And okay, yeah, so he feels a little betrayed that they've left him to manage alone. They didn't have much choice, but it's not like Megan to leave him uncovered, not like David to accept it. _

_He doesn't have time for that, though. He has to figure out how to save an innocent boy from a kidnapper who wants revenge on the kid's dad. _

_The train squeals to a halt before he has a chance to catch his breath, much less come up with a workable plan, and he's running again, alone, carrying the ransom toward the position the kidnapper chose, the position none of his friends can possibly know. _

_But when he gets there his team is already waiting to get him safely out, because it's Charlie, and Charlie does things like that._

_On the train, tension humming through him like the rhythm of the tracks, he knows how completely alone he is. Kirkland isn't answering, which means Kirkland is dead or otherwise unable to help him, and Kirkland was his only backup. _

_He wants nothing more than to be able to call on his team, tell them everything, but he's betrayed them, and they think he's betrayed everything they stand for; they won't help him. _

_There's no time to think of a plan, he only has a couple of minutes at most while Carter's not listening, and his fingers find Charlie's number all on their own. It's Don he needs to believe him, needs to tell all he knows so that even if he dies there's a chance of pulling something out of this op--he really does hate the thought that all he's been through might be for nothing. But it's Charlie he calls. _

_He can't possibly explain why. _

"You called me," Charlie reminds again, not even looking at him now, writing so fast he might run out of space before much longer. "You trust Don to know what to do--trust me to find you, okay, Colby? Hold on."

It would have been a superstition, except that it had proven true so many times in the last two years. Whenever a case seemed completely hopeless, it was time to call Charlie, whose math would give them whatever they needed to catch the criminal, solve the puzzle, or otherwise save the day.

Had anyone called it 'miraculous,' Charlie would be the first to protest. It was just numbers, and logic, and his own unique brand of genius. To Colby, though, walking into a trap without backup of any sort, and finding instead that the whole team was there to get him out--that had sure felt like a miracle, however Charlie explained it.

There's a siren blaring from outside somewhere, loud and strident, and then a voice: "This is the FBI! Shut down your engines! Prepare to be boarded!" and everyone in the room jerks in reaction, sudden panic--

Colby knows it isn't real.

Colby blinks, and Charlie's gone, all his numbers with him. He wishes that hallucination had hung around a little longer, but now it's just Kirkland, who says, "It's almost over."

He's not sure what he's been telling them, except that it wasn't what they wanted to hear. If he were being perfectly honest, he'd tell them that he has no idea who this guy is, but that he's pretty sure Charlie's figured it out by now somehow, because Charlie does things like that.

No reason to give them the satisfaction, though. Not when he's been lying to his best friends for two years.

_Kirkland holds the syringe of potassium chloride, and says, "Good job, Granger. You did your duty, and you can rest now." _

_It's tempting, an honorable end to the pain that's consumed his last hours. Kirkland knows that, understands how tired Colby is, because Kirkland died like this too. _

_The needle goes in like a knife to the heart--_

Colby closes his eyes. It's not--

But the needle _is_ real--

The darkness rolls over him, suffocating; he sees Kirkland's sorrowful smile, and he knows Kirkland was right, no one is coming to save him this time.

He's known that all along.


	2. part two: waking

At first he can't remember why he's surprised to wake up. Then the pain hits him with a sledgehammer, and it occurs to him that waking up really isn't such a good thing.

He'd been sure it was over, but it isn't, because everything hurts, every inch of him prickling in complaint against what he suspects isn't really that much pressure. There's a deep, fiery ache in his chest he knows wasn't there before, and the rest is only dimmer by comparison. Something is over his face, but he's breathing--every breath a gasp of effort, though the air seems to be coming a little easier now.

A rustle of cloth close beside him, and his eyes open automatically, blurry vision clearing: a glint of metal--

It's another syringe.

Fear jolts through him, and he realizes he's still paralyzed, trapped, almost nothing will respond to his urgent need to move. Another drug, and he can't imagine this one's going to be any kind of improvement on the last few.

"Do they know my name?" the Chinese agent growls, leaning over him with the needle. Colby doesn't answer, because he's certainly not going to give in _now_, and anyway trying to talk would just be too much effort.

He feels the sharp metal pierce the over-sensitive skin of his inner arm, probing for the vein, and tries not to flinch too obviously at the rush of cold that follows moments later. What, no description of what to expect this time? Maybe he's made the guy mad. As the only victory he's likely to get, he'll accept that. It's an IV bag this time, he notices further, and doesn't want to think about what all might be going into him now.

Another breath, and he fixes his eyes ahead, fumbling for the zone of calm he'd managed to form, the one he's lost somehow and really wants back.

The room is different, lighter, so either they've moved him or he's picked an especially odd aspect to hallucinate about. He's lying down, which is definitely no improvement, it makes him feel even more vulnerable.

White walls, except they've been covered with complex equations in black marker, which seems a little--

Colby blinks. Ah. Charlie's come back. That explains it.

The mathematician is over in the corner, and he's brought a little chalkboard with him, possibly because the walls are full already. That's the trouble with permanent marker, Colby notes, you can't erase it.

Charlie's ignoring the Chinese agent, who, of course, doesn't see Charlie. Colby's trying to ignore the Chinese agent, too, but it's a lot harder to do if you don't happen to be a hallucination.

"No one is coming to help you, Agent Granger," the man says, with that cold, confident expression that Colby would really like to knock off his face. "You can tell me what I want to know now, or you can go through a great deal more pain and tell me later."

Telling him isn't even an option, so Colby looks at Charlie, who's much better company even when he's not saying anything. Charlie has that furrowed look, like the world is refusing to conform to his math, and he's set the little chalkboard down. "Colby," he says slowly, "I need you to trust me, okay?"

Since Charlie has a well-established habit of being right, Colby doesn't see a problem with this.

Charlie meets his eyes, earnest and nervous. "You're in a hospital. You're safe, Colby."

And he's right pretty much all the time; but this is a hallucination, and is obviously just saying what Colby wants to hear, because that isn't possible.

"So I'm not real," Charlie acknowledges, running a hand through his curly hair as frustration creeps into his voice, "but this _is_ a hospital."

Colby squints at the ceiling, which is plain enough to belong to a hospital or to any number of other less pleasant things, if it's real at all, and realizes that wherever he is, he doesn't think it's on a boat. Which means...he doesn't know what it means.

He's already resigned himself to death. He can't let himself break, whatever Carter's Chinese friends do to him, but if he lets himself believe this, and it turns out to be just another fantasy of rescue, an especially detailed one...he's afraid he might.

The Chinese spy bends over him, still with that hateful little smirk, and reaches for his face. Colby can't quite keep himself from reacting, wincing away from the cold touch as the thing lifts away.

It's an oxygen mask, Colby sees, and he wonders if it was giving him some other drug, too, or just air to keep him alive for the torture a little longer. It's been taken away so that he can talk, of course, not that he's going to.

"You're not seeing it right!" Charlie protests, but Colby doesn't dare hope. Still, the force of the statement is such that, for a moment, as the Chinese agent walks to the door, Colby sees him in a doctor's white coat, which is more than a little disturbing.

The next instant, all the breath is driven from him with the shock of seeing Megan Reeves escorted into the room by one of the guards, at gunpoint.

No. They can't have caught Megan. She's just a hallucination, too, has to be.

He looks to Charlie, who is definitely _not_ real and therefore has the most definite status of anyone in the room, not to mention being the only one present likely to give him any sort of answer. He desperately wants Charlie to tell him that Megan's not really here, because if she's here then she'll die too, and he doesn't think he can bear to lose a friend this way.

But Charlie says, "Yes, she's real." He's scratching at his chalkboard, stiff and offended, and doesn't bother to glance up. "Maybe you'll trust what she tells you, if you won't trust me."

"Do you really want to put your FBI friend here through everything you've been through?" the Chinese agent asks, smug and over-confident as he pauses by the door. "I'll be generous and give you a few minutes to talk before I begin. For her sake, I hope she convinces you to spare her."

The door closes with a click, leaving Megan and Colby alone except for the guard, who's taken up a position by the door. "Megan," Colby tries, but there's no sound in his sandpapered throat.

"You look awful," she says frankly, "but it's good to see you...no, don't talk yet, they gave me some ice chips for you."

It's a little paper cup and a plastic spoon, and he knows why they want him able to talk, but he lets her give him a spoonful anyway. He has to explain, or apologize, or...something.

They're going to kill her, whatever he does, and they'll probably torture her whether he tells them what he knows or not, because they aren't going to take his word on it. And he can't tell them, anyway, because he doesn't have the answers they want. His eyes flick to the guard, who doesn't seem to be listening. "Get out of here," he rasps, low and urgent. "Even if they shoot you, s'better than what...you've got a chance while you're not drugged, just go, Megan, you've got to--"

She's shaking her head, horror in her eyes. "Colby, no--"

He has to make her listen. "I betrayed you," he reminds, harshly. "Don't waste your life on me."

"We already rescued you, Colby," she tells him, voice clear and tense. "Charlie figured out where you were, and you're safe now. You're in the hospital, and there's no one here who wants to hurt you. Or me, or anyone."

Like Charlie said--but no, that can't be-- "He's right there!" Colby insists.

\--and it's not the guard anymore, it's Carter's boss, how did that happen? It doesn't matter, because he's standing there with the syringe and says, "You've cost your friends their lives, Agent Granger, was that what you wanted?"

"Megan," Colby gasps, because she's just standing there like she can't see the danger--

And maybe she really can't, which means that Charlie was--

"That is more than enough out of _you_," Charlie announces, standing behind the Chinese agent, and brings his chalkboard up like a weapon and slams it down across his head.

The chalkboard shatters, and the torturer crumples, with an expression of utter shock on his face as he falls. He lands hard, gasps for breath, and vanishes as if he'd never been there at all.

Colby takes a moment to imprint _that_ scene straight across every single memory he has of the man. Every time he thinks of his captivity, he wants to see Charlie Eppes defeating his captor with the power of math. And a chalkboard.

Then he lets the laughter out, boiling up in near silence from somewhere deeper than his weary lungs, his aching chest, and taking the worst of his tension with it. "He's gone now," Colby manages to tell Megan between breaths, because she looks more than a little worried, not sure what to make of his reaction. "You were right. And Charlie, uh...Charlie hit him with a chalkboard."

Megan's eyebrows go right up, and then she laughs, too, warm and relieved.

"Drat," Charlie says, mournfully picking up the largest of the powdery fragments of chalk, and looking at the dark green shards of the chalkboard. "What am I going to write on now?" He looks at Colby, eyes wide and pleading. "I really need a new chalkboard, or, or...something."

Dutifully, Colby repeats this request to Megan, because hey, he owes Charlie.

"Ah.." Megan's forehead creases in concern again. "Charlie--you know the Charlie you're seeing isn't real, Colby."

Colby blinks, working this out. Yes, of course, but never mind all the times the real Charlie's saved the day, he owes _this_ Charlie just for that priceless sight. "Well, it doesn't have to be a real chalkboard," he offers in compromise.

Megan pauses to think this over, then slides him a small, conspiratorial smirk and steps into the hallway. She comes back moments later, making like she's dragging something into the room.

"That's perfect!" Charlie says in delight, trading in his chalk fragment for one of the fresh white cylinders waiting below the large chalkboard.

With a tired smile, Colby says, "Thanks, Megan." The smile slips as he remembers that, safe or not, he's still an escaped prisoner. Without Kirkland, he's not even sure he can prove he wasn't a traitor. And his team might have rescued him, but they were hardly likely to want--wait, if they'd staged a rescue-- "Don and David, they aren't hurt?" he demands, suddenly worried that his team might have paid too high a price for getting him out of his mess.

But Megan reassures him, "None of us were injured except you." Remembered fear clouds her face. "It's a good thing we arrived when we did. Your heart had stopped...David had to use CPR..."

Which explains, Colby realizes suddenly, that particular deep ache.

Someone opens the door, and this time he recognizes the doctor's coat as reality, not illusion. Megan glances at him and nods, and tells Colby, "I can't stay. You're still in ICU, because it'll take another day or so for the drugs to be gone. They don't really want me in here, but they thought I might be able to calm you down. Apparently you kept panicking whenever a doctor or nurse came in."

"It's the needles," Charlie points out, rather grimly. Colby's lucid enough to understand that.

He thanks Megan again, and she gives him more ice chips before she leaves. A nurse comes in, and when she's replacing the oxygen mask she looks like his mom, which is kind of nice, and when she gets out her needles to draw blood she looks like Carter, which is not so nice. Charlie tells him what's real, though, and Colby trusts him.

Everything hurts, but the pain over his heart drowns it out with a shimmering hope, because it means his team dragged him back from death. It means that maybe he's not alone, after all.


	3. part three: trusting

_They flood into his room even before the hallucinations have quite stopped, anonymous cold faces with guns and one waiting set of handcuffs and leg shackles. They pull Colby from the bed, not gently, and cuff him, cold metal around his wrists again. Colby doesn't think he could walk a dozen feet unaided, much less get away, and anyway he doesn't want to make things worse than they already are; he doesn't struggle. _

"_He's not ready to leave the hospital yet!" the nurse protests, dedication to a patient more important than what that patient has done. "The drug--" _

"_He'll be well enough taken care of at the prison," the guard apparently in charge interrupts brusquely. Colby doesn't want to upset the kind-hearted lady by pointing out the differences in their definitions of 'well enough'. _

_Someone else mutters, "And he can't escape while he's drugged," which Colby has to admit is a perfectly rational sentiment from their point of view. _

_As he's escorted into the hallway, Colby sees his team standing with a man in a suit. "They tried to kill him," Don is protesting, "he can't have been working for--" _

"_We aren't sure why they drugged him," the man cuts in, smoothly, "but surely you can see that Granger was expecting it to happen. That's why he called you. He was probably in on Kirkland's death. There's no evidence that he was part of a sanctioned operation." _

"_He wouldn't do that," Megan argues, but she looks at Colby, and he sees the doubt in her eyes. _

_He's grateful for the protests, even if they are half-hearted. It's a better memory to take with him to prison than the fury and bleak betrayal he last saw on their faces. _

_David says, "He's been lying to everyone for two years, what makes you think we can trust him now?" Which, true or not, tears open the pain that runs deeper than the torture, and Colby flinches. _

_The other man turns toward Colby, and says, "It's only what you deserve for lying to everyone, Granger," but he has Carter's face-- _

"Colby, it's not real!" he finally registers Charlie's voice, and knows he's still in the hospital bed, alone except for his own mind and the drugs.

His wrists are in soft restraints, to keep him from jerking the IV out at every new delusion. The shock of knowing he is safe hasn't come easily; every time someone approaches, Colby has to remember all over again. The nurse has finally taken the oxygen mask off for good, or at least for as long as he's breathing adequately on his own. He's afraid he's made several people uneasy since speaking became possible, because it's hard to remember which of them are real at any given point.

But there's been no sign of anyone coming to return him to the prison.

"Not yet, anyway," Carter taunts, and Charlie winces in silent acknowledgment of the very real possibility, turning to his chalkboard in retreat.

Now that the knowledge of safety has stolen most of the power from the shadows of his captivity, it's the guilt that comes to haunt him most often, hovering around him and refusing to dissipate.

Dwayne Carter is the friend he feels least guilty about betraying. Dwayne made his choices, and he should have known Colby better than to think he'd just go along with treason.

Least guilty; which is not the same thing as _not_ guilty, because his old army buddy's standing there, bloodstained, eyes dark with accusation. "Saved your _life_, man," he seethes, repetition on a familiar theme. "Two years, you've been lying to me!"

"You saved my life, Dwayne, yeah," Colby says, wearily. "And I'd have saved yours, if I could. Given you mine without thinking twice."

Carter snorts his disbelief, starts to voice his objection, but Colby goes on before he can. "You didn't want my life, you wanted my honor. I know you don't put much of a price on that, but I do."

"Right," David sneers, and it's a tone of voice Colby's only ever heard him use on suspects and never wanted to hear directed at him. "Your honor--that's why you've been lying to us, right? You were just following _orders_."

Charlie looks up from his chalkboard suddenly, and Colby welcomes the interruption. "Hey--you need to pay attention," he advises, nodding toward the door. Someone's just come in, and Colby frowns. It's the gray-haired nurse he's grown to recognize, but just outside--real or not real, it's Don who's standing there.

The nurse approaches his bedside, and thankfully for once there's no sign of a needle and he keeps his focus. "Agent Eppes would like to speak with you, Colby," she says, faint disapproval in her voice. "I want you to know that if you don't want to talk with him, you don't have to. And it's not legal for anything you say under the influence of this drug to be used against you."

He looks at Charlie, who shrugs in clear surprise and confirms, "It's really Don."

His protective nurse is waiting for a response. "I, uh, he can come in," Colby says. He doesn't have anything to hide from Don, and he definitely doesn't want Don to think he's hiding anything. Never again.

The senior FBI agent is in a suit, and shoves his hands in his pockets as he glances uncomfortably around at the medical equipment. At least Colby assumes that's what he's looking at, and not at the various people standing about, because Charlie's categorized all of them as not real.

"Granger," Don greets him--gruff, but thankfully the hostility Colby heard from him last is gone. "Megan said...I thought, uh..." He trails off, clearly searching for words.

Colby sympathizes, because he doesn't know quite what to say, either. "Thanks for coming, Don," he settles on, when the silence grows too thick. And yeah, that means more than one thing, and he hopes Don understands.

Don runs a hand through his hair. "I'm glad you're safe," he says, and in an unguarded moment Colby can see how tired he is, the shadows on his face, how hard these past weeks of strain and uncertainty have been on him.

Wondering what it would be like to be told David or Megan or Don was a traitor, Colby scarcely manages not to wince visibly at what he's put his team through. Even in jail, he understood what was happening; they didn't have that luxury, he couldn't give it to them, he was following orders. "I'm sorry," he tells Don, inadequate words but all he can find.

"I know," Don replies, quiet, and shifts his weight uneasily. "After Megan said you were, uh, having a tough time sorting things out, I wanted to make sure you knew what happened."

It's embarrassing how grateful Colby feels for the considerate gesture. He decides to blame it on the drugs. "Everyone's okay?" he checks. He thinks he remembers Megan saying no one was hurt, but his memory's not too good right now.

A faintly regretful expression shows fleetingly in Don's eyes. "No one on our side died in the raid," he agrees, "but Dwayne Carter's dead. He shot Lancer."

"Lancer?" Colby asks, because he can't recall anyone by that name, and because he's not ready to think about Carter yet. Off to the side, Dwayne grins at him, and there's blood everywhere.

Don looks a little startled. "Mason Lancer, the guy who was sticking needles in you? Didn't you know?"

"Saved your life _again_, Granger," Carter hisses. "Died for it. What do you think about that?"

Colby tries very hard to ignore him. "If I'd known who Carter was taking orders from, I'd've knocked him out and surrendered," he tells Don. He maybe should have done that anyway, and never mind his orders. Dwayne would've hated Colby for the rest of either of their lives, but he'd be alive. He blinks hard, hoping Carter will be gone, but no such luck. "All Lancer wanted to know was how much I knew," he adds. "Couldn't tell him anything, didn't know anything. Idiot."

"Well, Lancer's dead now," Don says, "and the DOJ is busy cleaning up his network. They'd have preferred we captured him, but I can't regret it too much."

Which is nice, but still leaves Colby without any proof that he's been following orders all along, without anything that will keep him out of prison. "Serves you right," Carter points out, which Colby doesn't deny.

He has to ask the question--not knowing is worse. "When are they taking me back to the prison?"

Don stares at him, frozen for a moment, face unreadable. He probably wasn't expecting that question, but Colby needs the answer. The pause is too long, though, and Colby feels obliged to explain, "Kirkland's dead, and there's no proof..."

"I won't let them," Don interrupts. "We have all the proof we need, and we'll find whatever they need, but you're not going back to prison. You'll stay in the hospital while we're getting your name cleared."

It can't possibly be that easy. He draws a breath to say so.

"You trust me, right, Colby?" Don quirks him about three quarters of a smile before his face seals over again, into the professional mask he's so good at holding.

He releases the breath in relief, because yeah, if Don says he'll do something, Colby trusts it'll be done. "Don," Colby begins, and hesitates. What he wants to say is, _please let me come back, Don, let everything be the way it was before._ The words stick in his throat, though, because even drugged he can't manage to be that open, and he coughs and says, "Tell, uh, tell Charlie thanks for me, will you?"

Don pauses, hand on the doorframe, and his face softens just a little. "Yeah," he agrees, "I'll do that."

Then he's gone.

"He wouldn't let you back if you were the last FBI agent in the country," the image of David jeers. "Nobody's going to want you now, Granger, they know you'd just be spying on them. Maybe you can go join the CIA and spy on the Chinese, since you do such a good job."

Colby's hated that word with a passion since he first realized that it was perfectly true applied to him. He's never wanted to be a spy, there's nothing he wants less. He only followed orders, did what seemed right and honorable, and before he knew it, he was in too deep to get out...

He knows he's not much of a liar, not to the people he cares about. He told all the partial truths that would make his team assume they knew the rest of the answers, make them furious enough to stop asking questions. But they were truths.

Larry's there now, silent support beside Megan. Silent probably because Colby never has been able to predict what Larry's going to say. Megan looks to him, looks back and says, "Colby, they still trust you. If they had stopped, this would never have been so hard on them."

It's a better point than he really wants to hear, but he's pretty sure this particular hallucination means it well.


	4. part four: hoping

They won't shut up.

He's got a pretty firm grasp on reality now, and he does his best not to alarm the poor medical personnel just doing their jobs, which means he can't yell at any of the hallucinations, which means they get to yell at _him_ uninterrupted.

This strikes him as entirely unfair.

Charlie's turned his back on the whole mess, except for the occasional reminders of who is or is not real. Colby doesn't blame him, though some support would be nice. Larry and Megan have stayed thankfully neutral, watching everyone with an expressionlessness not common to either in reality. Don hasn't made an appearance, possibly because the memory of his real visit is too clear.

Everyone else, from his parents to his high school wrestling coach to his CO from Afghanistan to David, has taken this opportunity to inform him of how poorly he's handled this and how unlikely it is that his team will ever forgive him, that they've already done more than he could ever expect or deserve.

The worst part is that he _knows_ that.

There's only so much he can take in silence, and eventually he has to break, or go mad. "All right, fine," he says aloud, sharply, "what _are_ the odds?"

Every figure in the room goes silent and turns to look at Charlie, with the exception of a rather startled young woman in blue scrubs, who backs out of the room with alacrity.

"That one was real," Charlie points out, and Colby flushes a bit at having scared her.

The main issue stands, though. "If Charlie says I don't have a chance I'll listen to him, and you can go away," Colby announces, softly, to the hopefully-unreal inhabitants of his hospital room. "And if I do have a chance, then you all have to listen to him, and go away." It's worth a try. Clearly Charlie's the one with the most influence here.

Charlie sighs, and gestures helplessly with his chalk. "It's like...a river," he says, and raises his eyebrows, as though expecting Colby to understand everything now.

The hopeful look is genuine Charlie, but Colby can't help thinking that's not much of an analogy.

Charlie shrugs. "So you're not very creative," he says, "don't blame _me_. The point is, there are too many variables, and not enough data. Inconclusive results."

Inconclusive. "What good is that?" he snaps, because he really, really wants to know this one answer. Wants Charlie to tell him something--anything.

"Colby," Charlie says, patient as though he is teaching a specially disadvantaged student, "I'm not really Charlie. I'm only what you make me. And you are not a genius, nor a mathematician, nor have you been paying nearly enough attention to Charlie to be able to fake it. I can't actually tell you anything but what you already know."

Somehow, Colby had been hoping for some kind of reassurance, because Charlie's come to represent...hope, or insight, or trust, or whatever it is that means he's almost always right, and if Charlie told him things would work out, maybe he could believe it. But this is not Charlie, anyway; this is just a trick of his mind and the drugs. Even if he did give an answer, even if it was the answer Colby most wants to hear, it probably wouldn't matter.

Not-Charlie sets his chalk down in a silent apology with wide, sorrowful eyes, and begins to erase his chalkboard. As the eraser moves in swift, wide strokes, Colby can see the wall behind it. The black equations scribbled everywhere around the room are fading, too, until there's nothing left of the hallucination but Not-Charlie himself, fiddling with his dusty eraser.

Everything is silent, except for the distant chaos of a normal day at a large hospital. Colby closes his eyes and wonders if this means the drugs are wearing off, or if his hallucinations have just temporarily grown tired of him. There's nothing but the smell of chalk dust, like vanished hope.

"It's not that I don't _want_ to tell you everything will be fine," Not-Charlie offers into the stillness, words heavy with the weight of what he can't say.

And since Not-Charlie's a part of himself, Colby can't help but understand.

He drifts off for a while, fragmentary dreams he can't remember taking the place of the vivid illusions. It's not really possible to sleep well with the medical personnel checking on him every few minutes, but he gets close enough that the time passes more quickly.

Every time he opens his eyes, Not-Charlie is still there, reminding him that nothing's changed. Which he needs, because the sight of a syringe hasn't yet failed to trigger a brief flashback, but he wishes _something_ would change.

Actually, he kind of wishes the whole thing had been a bad dream, and he could wake up and go back to work like normal.

He isn't sure how long it's been when the gray-haired nurse, whose name neither he nor Not-Charlie remembers, comes in and asks, "Is it all right if a Dr. Charlie Eppes visits you?" She seems much less suspicious of Charlie than of Don, which is only natural, Colby supposes, because it's hard for anyone to be properly suspicious of Charlie.

"It's fine," he assures the nurse, and looks at the door, curious why Charlie would visit. The familiar curly dark head ducks into the room, with a tentative smile.

Not-Charlie says, startled, "This is real." Colby glances at him, and at the real Charlie, and there's no confusion between them at all because in addition to Not-Charlie's eraser, Charlie's very nearly wearing a beard. The math genius has never had to stick to FBI standards of appearance, but still, he's a good deal scruffier than Colby can remember seeing him before.

"What, did you think this wouldn't affect him?" Not-Charlie says, uncharacteristic acid in his tone. "Charlie's been part of 'your team' longer than you have, and you thought he'd be just fine while your betrayal tore them apart?"

No, he'd never thought that. Just...kinda hoped.

But Charlie's smile is unshadowed, there's no accusation in his eyes as he says, "Hey, Colby!" His voice is hushed, appropriate to the intensive care unit of a hospital, but there's an unmistakable quality of enthusiasm in it.

"Hey, Charlie," Colby smiles back, and his own level of cheer rises in direct proportion to his visitor's. "What are you doing here?" he asks, and carefully doesn't say that he's pretty sure no one would want a valuable consultant visiting an assumed traitor.

"I've got good news," Charlie hastens to assure him. "Don's really busy talking with everyone, so he sent me to tell you. They found evidence--Kirkland had some papers put away, just in case of--what happened...and there was a, a video, of Lancer..." He trails off, going a little pale.

Colby had completely forgotten about Lancer's silent witness, the camera. At the time it hadn't seemed very important, but now he thinks about everything Lancer said and did being on tape. The muted horror in Charlie's eyes--he hopes no one's let the mathematician actually _watch_ the thing.

Charlie shakes it off, and his smile returns as he goes on, "You've been officially exonerated. Of course they'll have to debrief you, once you're better, but your record's clear. You're free, Colby."

Out of what has quickly become habit, he looks to Not-Charlie, who grins equally wide and says, "What, now you don't trust the real one?"

He shifts his focus back quickly, though not quickly enough to escape Charlie's notice. "Still hallucinating?" Charlie guesses, sympathy clear in the words. "They warned me you might be."

"Yeah," Colby admits, preferring not to give details. That would just be too weird. He changes the subject. "So, your math saved me again, huh?"

Charlie looks a little flustered. "I didn't do that much," he disclaims, "not this time. Just pointed a direction is all. Don and David and Megan really deserve the credit."

He's not going to argue, because it's one of the best things about Charlie, the humility Colby hadn't expected from a world-class genius. Charlie doesn't hesitate to remind the forgetful of his own value, but he never holds it over them, never demands anything but the trust he's earned many times over.

David's like that, too, and the rest of the team. Even in his drug-scrambled brain, Colby knows they won't try to yank him around by what he owes them. It makes him want to pay them back in the only way he can even more. If they'll let him.

"Charlie," he asks, abruptly, before he can think better of it, "is there a way to figure the odds on whether I could ever work with the team again?"

Reactions play openly across the mathematician's face: an instant of surprise, muting into joy for a split-second before that spark takes over, the one Colby's seen before: it comes with all the impossibly accurate equations Charlie's handed them. "There is," he admits, "and actually I've done some work about that sort of thing, lately, if you really want to know--of course human interaction precludes any absolute statements, there are too many variables, but I can get pretty close. I worked up a trust metric--" He's looking for a chalkboard, or a whiteboard, or markers or something, which isn't nearly so easy to provide when it has to be real. Failing that, Charlie just settles in for a verbal explanation that goes out of Colby's comprehension almost as soon as it begins.

Colby can't help it, he isn't following and he knows Charlie sees it on his face. Not-Charlie looks more offended than the real one. Charlie just says, "Based on my analysis, there's an excellent chance that you can regain the trust you had. The primary variable that could affect the outcome now is whether you want to."

"So the odds are pretty good?" Colby double-checks, because even though he thinks he actually understood most of that for once, he's drugged and slow and this is important, he wants to be sure.

Charlie takes pity on him, and his smile is all reassurance. "Yeah, Colby," Charlie says, "your odds are very good."

Everyone in the room but the real Charlie seems very small and clear, like they've walked into the horizon and paused partway, even though the room's not that big. All of them are smiling like it's as good news to them as it is to him, even Carter, who says, "I saved your life, man--do better with it than I would've."

He can see his team, plus their frequent consultants, waiting for him in the distance, and this time there's no betrayal in their faces, only acceptance.

* * *

  
__

epilogue

When the drugs finally wear off, Colby doesn't remember much of what he saw during the hallucinations; only general impressions and a few especially vivid images. Don has to tell him everything that happened when they rescued him again before he's confident he has it straight.

By way of rewarding him for following orders so well, the folks in charge offer him whatever posting he wants. The way they word the letter, he knows they think his team won't want him, which sort of negates the point of the reward since that's the only posting he does want.

He remembers he has it on the best authority that his odds are pretty good, and sticks it out.

Later, he has to go through therapy, of course, because he's been tortured and therefore must have issues to work through. Colby tells the psychologist that the nightmares aren't too bad, because he can't explain that they all end in laughter as Charlie slams a chalkboard down.

_ **end** _


End file.
